What is your business industry category or specialty?
Carreras & Lemoine LLP is a Legal Service Provider.

How do you describe your job to people outside the industry?
We focus on helping individuals and small-medium sized businesses in domestic and international matters.  We advise on corporate formation and business disputes, immigration issues, litigation, employment law and international family law.

Who are your main competitors and what differentiates you from the competition? What makes you unique?
There are many law firms in Atlanta.  What we hope makes us unique are the language skills of our attorneys and our understanding of cross-cultural issues.  The majority of our staff has worked and lived in Europe and nearly everyone here speaks English and French.  Other languages spoken include Dutch, Spanish, Italian and German.

How was the business started?
The Managing Partner, Dominique Lemoine, ventured out on his own after many years at the New York office of Coudert Brothers (later bought by Baker & McKenzie).

How many employees does the business have?
We have four US-qualified attorneys, one French attorney and support staff.  Three of our US attorneys are qualified in several jurisdictions, including California, Florida, New York and England & Wales.

How did you end up in Atlanta? 
My family moved to the US bit by bit.  Most of the other staff at C&L ended up in Atlanta through family or work and never left, probably because the weather is better here than in Northern Europe…

What is your number one business goal over the next year? 
Most of our clients have a US-French connection, largely because our attorneys speak French.  As some of our attorneys also speak Dutch, our goal in the coming year is to expand our presence in Georgia by offering the Dutch-language skills of our attorneys to the Dutch business community here.

What is the best advice you have received regarding doing business with Americans/Dutch?
I cannot say I have received any particular advice on this.  However, having lived in the Netherlands, I know that the Dutch value plain speaking.

Any other personal information you would like to share, e.g. hobbies, special interests, family etc…
The staff at C&L has acclimatized to living in the U.S., but we still have some European traits from our respective homelands that we have not lost, such as a love of French wine, Belgian chocolate and stroopwafels.  (As a Londoner, my personal favorite is a good cup of tea!)